The eventful life of Bee Wee Captain Nigel Heath
By Anne Hilton Sunday, February 10 2008

Sonia Heath (left) Irene Martini (centre) and Nigel Heath in 1989, guests at the wedding of Penelope Hilton and Michael Munro....Born in Lahore, in what is now Pakistan, on February 6, 1930, when half of the world was coloured pink in the Atlases of that time, Nigel Heath was a child of the Raj. His father, George, was a Major in the Indian Army, his mother Phyllis, the daughter of a bandmaster. He died on February 2, 2008 in the UK — a country he only really got to know in the last ten or so years of his life.

He was in England with his mother on “long leave” when the Second World War broke out and since India was a long, long way away from the bombing while London wasn’t, somehow, no one knows quite how, Phyllis (a very determined lady) and Nigel got passages to India — and safety — on a troopship. It wasn’t the most comfortable voyage but for young Nigel it was an adventure spiced with real danger as U-boats prowled the sea-lanes.

At ten going on eleven it would have been time for Nigel to go to boarding school in England but in wartime parents in the Indian Army, Indian Civil Service and business preferred to send their sons to safety in an English-style boarding school in Naini Tal, a hill station in the Himalayas. In fact, Nigel Heath didn’t return to England until he was 19 or 20 — by which time, after a slightly shaky start, he had learned to fly (the legend is that he took off for a solo training flight in a Sopwith Camel and returned to the airfield riding a camel).

He began his lifelong career as a commercial airline pilot with an airline in India, flying cargo on the perilous route through the Himalayas to remote areas cut off from the outside world by natural disasters.

India and Pakistan gained Independence in 1947 — in this respect Nigel Heath witnessed the passing of an Empire — but never spoke of the catastrophic separation between those two Commonwealth countries.

Although the war was over, there was still conscription in England for young men aged 18 and over. Nigel Heath was over 18 when he and his family returned to England so that, as a British subject, he was conscripted into the RAF, was taught to fly all over again — a fact that made front-page headlines in London’s Daily Express at the criminal waste of taxpayer’s money in a country on the verge of bankruptcy.

When he completed his National Service, Nigel Heath applied for employment with British European Airways (BEA), and was accepted. If he thought his time “flying the hump” in India was hair-raising enough, he hadn’t bargained for more thrills when the USSR closed the roads to and from West Berlin and Nigel found himself as aircrew and second officer flying the narrow, crowded, dangerous air lanes of the Berlin Airlift.

Four or five years of living in the cold, damp, dreary world of post-war Britain was more than enough for Indian-born-and-bred Nigel. Butter, sugar, chocolates, clothing — even bread was rationed, few houses had central heating, Dickensian pea-souper smogs in winter killed the elderly and young children as Britons tried to keep warm huddled over coal fires.

One morning Nigel spotted a notice inviting applications for pilots for a six-month contract with British West Indian Airways; he only needed to persuade his fiancé, Sonia Rickman, who also worked with BEA, that instead of shivering and coughing in London, six months in the Caribbean would be a great way to start married life. She agreed and so, in 1954, Sonia and Nigel Heath got married, came to Trinidad on a six-month contract — and stayed here for the next 52 years.

Flying is stressful; airline pilots need regular breaks from flying — which leaves them with time on their hands; some devote their spare days to sport, or run a business on the side. Moreover, time off in cities in North America and the UK allows them to make useful business contacts. At one time Nigel and two other pilots got together to operate a Coney Island that travelled around Trinidad. Then as their boys David and Richard were old enough for school, Sonia took up painting as a hobby.

There were no professional framers in Trinidad in those days; Sonia asked Nigel to take her paintings to New York for framing. He did, found carrying them up no problem, but carrying framed paintings back was awkward. “Surely,” he thought, “I could make frames in my small workshop under the house.’”

He bought books on the subject, haunted the back rooms of framing shops in New York — and framed Sonia’s paintings. Friends admired his frames, asked Nigel to frame their work for them and before he knew it his “hobby” was taking up most of his spare time. To cut a long story short, the framing “hobby” outgrew the space under the house. “Fine Art Picture Framers” opened in Upper Frederick Street in premises now occupied by the Living Water Centre.

Nigel also imported prints and artist’s materials as well as frames for his business. Next he reckoned that he could make his own frames; he rented factory premises, imported machinery, learned the delicate art of applying gold leaf by breath and brush — and taught his employees to do the same. By the time he retired from active involvement in the business, “Fine Art” was exporting frames to other Caribbean islands, and to North America.

At the same time Nigel was involved with TALPA (Trinidad Airline Pilots Association) testifying in the Industrial Court to bring pay, working conditions and regulations for pilots up to International standards. Meanwhile his family was growing, his elder son David followed in his father’s footsteps, gained his pilot’s licence in the UK — and joined BWIA.

In fact between them father and son served BWIA for a total of 66 years — as long as the airline existed. David left Trinidad perforce when BWIA folded because, although he was a senior, experienced pilot, he was not offered employment with Caribbean Airlines; he is now flying with Easy Jet. Richard, the Heath’s younger son, is a successful architect now living in the UK. Their daughter, Lynda, is a dentist, also in the UK.

It was a close call that might have killed his daughter when she was driving downtown from the Heath’s home in Cascade and almost collided with a car breaking traffic regulations at the St Ann’s Roundabout, that prompted Nigel to design a plan for traffic from the Lady Young Road to drive around the St Ann’s Roundabout to St Ann’s Road instead of driving all the way round the Savannah. He himself was annoyed that he had to drive three miles out of his way every time he came back from a flight or drove home from the framing factory via the Lady Young. Even so, it took ten years (and a change of Government) for the traffic authorities to accept his plan — with a couple of improvements.

Typically, when the new, improved roundabout was opened Nigel refused the invitation to attend the official opening, he didn’t want the publicity. He shunned the limelight. It was enough that his plan had been carried out, that his daughter, and others in Cascade, St Ann’s were no longer in danger from mad drivers cutting across to St Ann’s from Lady Young.

Nigel retired from BWIA and, wanting to keep in closer touch with his two children, and grandchildren in England, bought a cottage near his younger son’s home. On average, every year he and Sonia spent about six months in England and six months in Trinidad; they liked being close to their family in England but liked to see old friends and David’s family in Trinidad.

After he retired Nigel and Sonia walked every morning in the Botanical Gardens until a couple of years ago when Nigel found he couldn’t walk up the hill any longer and he was always short of breath. He checked with doctors in the UK but they couldn’t find anything to explain his weakness. It was his doctor here who suggested Nigel might have MND, Motor Neuron Disease, aka amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

There is no treatment, so far as I know, for MND in Trinidad, Nigel was advised to go to the UK where the tentative diagnosis was confirmed. MND is a cruel disease, there is no cure, sometimes it progresses swiftly, sometimes patients get remission for a time, but ultimately it is fatal. Doctors can only, at best, alleviate some life-threatening symptoms as bit by bit, the patient becomes helpless, until he is utterly dependent on caregivers to feed, clothe, wash him, and yet his mind remains clear, lucid, he knows exactly what is happening around him — and to him.

Nigel and Sonia fought the disease tooth and nail, Sonia taking care of him as weakness claimed one function or another, Nigel refused to give in, insisting on driving the car even though he needed a motorised “scooter” to get around parks and supermarkets, airports and suchlike, a “walker” and a stair lift at home. He only accepted a wheelchair in the last two weeks of his life. He kept in constant touch with fellow MND sufferers all over the world via the Internet.

But at 3 am on February 2 Nigel Heath could fight no more. His friends here will miss him. Spare a thought for him, and his family and for all those who suffer from MND, whenever you pass “Fine Art” with its “made in Trinidad” framed photographs, prints and paintings, or drive around the St Ann’s Roundabout.